


The Balance

by Bazylia_de_Grean



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 15:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12986964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bazylia_de_Grean/pseuds/Bazylia_de_Grean
Summary: The Force binds all living creatures, and they are its unwitting tools. But it will end. Sooner rather than later. It will end, and it will be the Exile’s doing – a perfectly-balanced lightsaber in Kreia’s hand, a blade that will cut the Force open, that will create a wound which will make the Force bleed out, spilling light and dark across the galaxy until there is nothing left.





	The Balance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



> (Thanks to Ranna Dylin for beta-reading and to Miya for checking the fic's lore-compliance!)

* * *

 

I

The Exile thinks she’s a wound in the Force. Something unnatural, damaged, broken. And partly she is – but ah, she’s broken in all the right places, broken and bleeding – a beautiful sight, for those skilled enough to notice. That blood will eventually draw the Force back in, like a hungry firaxan shark, but not yet, not yet. For a moment, frozen in the carbonite of time, the Exile can be perfect effortlessly, without struggling. Yet still struggle she does; that is what causes her pain, but she is too confused to see it. Lost in space, among unknown stars, as if stranded at sea with no horizon in sight; lost and scared, and craving safety. But only stepping out of that safe comfort zone enables one to _grow_. Though growing is not what the Exile does – she blooms, thrives, an exotic flower, short-lived and dangerous and perfect, unable as it is to understand its own beauty.

She cannot appreciate it yet, but she will, in time she will. The Force will reach for her, it surely will – it never lets such prizes out of its grasp; poor little things, like haunted animals: Revan, Malak, and now the Exile, the third of the three. One shifting from side to side, one given entirely to the light only to turn to darkness with his whole spirit, and the third, the last, trapped in between – floating, _soaring_ in between. One card fate draws so rarely when playing sabacc with mortals – the _Balance_.

It takes a lot to understand the first, most basic truth about the Force – there is no balance. One can shift between darkness and light – just names, thought of as absolutes when in reality they are two marks on a continuum; on a circle, even, perhaps. One can thread on the very border, though – without false modesty – few dance at the precipice with such skill as Kreia herself. It is what they sometimes call a gray Jedi – but Kreia is no Jedi, nor does she associate any colours with her. All those labels are incredibly foolish – let’s take white light, for example. A full spectrum of colours visible to the human eye – and most other races as well. But still there are so many aspects it doesn’t encompass – ultraviolet, infrared. And darkness – the lack of colour, the lack of light. The Force doesn’t work this way; it eludes common comparisons, it goes beyond words the known languages of the galaxy can muster.

That is what she is trying to teach the Exile. To achieve the true balance in the Force doesn’t mean being a perfect Jedi – nor a perfect Sith – nor walking that line in between, so thin and yet so broad. Life is more vast than minds of the creatures living it, sentient or not. Though maybe the latter know, on some level, what the first are vainly struggling to understand – they sense it, breathe it; _instinct_ , the purest form of premonition. But even animals, with their keen, sharp senses, cannot see, hear nor smell that truth, even though it is more basic than even the simplest, most primitive life forms themselves.

The true balance of the Force is the _lack_ of it.

* * *

The Force is coming back to her, like energy drawn into a black hole. And with it, the Exile starts drawing people to her, too.

Kreia watches them, unseeing eyes noticing all that is truly noteworthy. How Atton looks at the Exile and thinks of all the Jedi whose last breaths he’s heard, and how he’d like to hear her breaths in a very different situation, even if the short, surprised gasps sound so alike in his mind. How the Disciple – Mical, it has been many years and a galaxy away and lifetimes apart for him, but Kreia still remembers the small boy, a little ray of sunshine, a tiny sun that could make one’s eyes and head hurt from looking at him – how he Watches the Exile with reverence and awe of a loyal, ardent student, not seeing her for the woman she is and not having a clue that reverence and awe are not what she needs. How the Zabrak follows her orders and calls her ‘General’, tying her back to the past she should not forget, but set aside. How Visas – another eyeless one that uses the Force, bends it to her will to see – goes from fighting against the Exile to fighting at her side. How even Mira, a stray smuggler from a pit of scum and dirt, drifts towards the Exile, caught in her current.

The Force is coming back to her, and now the Exile is a river, waves that pool around people and carries them along, none strong enough to resist the flow. The Force is coming back, and there’s enough of it to fill her followers, to guide them, to shape them from common tools and unnecessary junk into lightsabers. That, Kreia approves of.

What she does not approve of is how the Exile _cares_ , how she adds weight after weight onto her shoulders, how she lets feelings burden her. Responsibility – that is acceptable; watching each other’s back – that is sensible in a fight; instilling loyalty in one’s followers – that is commendable, something any wise leader should do. But _caring_ is what brings people from great heights into the deepest pits of despair and even into death, into errors and misjudgements. Kreia knows; she had been there, once; she remembers that leaving the Jedi Order _hurt_ , and she cannot fathom how that had been possible, how naive she had been. But she has learned from her mistakes, and will teach the Exile from them.

Sometimes, Kreia wonders if her judgement isn’t clouded, too. If she has learned to rely on her other senses so much that she’s forsaken sight for sensing, _feeling_ her way around. If that is a burden, and if that will eventually bring her down, and whether she will be glad to fall. But sacrifices are necessary, sometimes, she reasons with herself, and what is more worthy of sacrifice than that mythical balance both the Jedi and the Sith and all the nameless in between have been striving to find for ages?

Would the Exile notice that she, too, is a tool – a most elegant lightsaber, a most precise device, a work of art, but still to be used. The scales that will measure the balance of the Force. Tipped. Perfect. But no, she is too preoccupied with training her apprentices, with solving the tangled webs of their loyalties – and whether it is real.

There are times when Kreia wonders about it, too. If she isn’t floating with the current as well, first drawn to the Exile by the gravity of her emptiness, and then drawn into the river so slowly she has never noticed until all her robes were wet. But unlike the others, she feels no need to talk to the Exile about it, to unbury forgotten things from her past; she is here to teach. It irritates her, how much of the Exile’s time others waste, but ultimately they will be tools, too, one way or the other. Perhaps it is right that the Exile offers her words and attention in exchange for loyalty.

Still doubting everything, poor, lost Exile, doubting everything and everyone; never certain what is loyalty and what is the Force’s influence; never considering they might be one and the same. The Force binds all living creatures, and they are its unwitting tools. But it will end. Sooner rather than later. It will end, and it will be the Exile’s doing – a perfectly-balanced lightsaber in Kreia’s hand, a blade that will cut the Force open, that will create a wound which will make the Force bleed out, spilling light and dark across the galaxy until there is nothing left.

That is why the Exile is such a well-tailored pawn for this game – because she is the whole deck of cards, such a neat package in the form of a single person. The Knight, the Fall, the Lightsaber, the Death and the Life, the Spirit, the Hermit, the General, the Empty Cup, the Galaxy, the Black Hole and the Supernova, the Particles of Light and the Dark Matter. The Balance; always so difficult to read because it’s so many meanings hidden in one card. _All_ meanings.

* * *

 

II

They all stand beside her now. Some have come willingly, and some were set in her path by fate – by the Force, but Meetra does not want to use that word, not sure whether she doesn’t hate it more than she loves it; her feelings and opinion matter so little when faced with something that is a part of her, that’s in her blood and the marrow of her bones and her every nerve and the very matter of her thoughts. Whatever her feelings, the Force is a part of her – was a part of her even after she’d been cut off from it; more back then than anytime else, because nothing has ever been as profound as that loneliness.

They all stand beside her now, no matter the beginnings, and tell her of their past and their secrets, and pledge her their loyalty. She listens to their words and smiles at their assurances when they expect it, as if she felt uplifted, to make them believe they could help her carry the burden that weighs down her spirit. In a way, it is true.

But every word, every expression, every glance makes her wonder – is it really them speaking to her – of her – or is it the Force’s influence flowing from her soul and from her mouth? Are they really here for her, or is that mysterious power that she’s known all her life, but every year and day makes her understand it less than before? What was a child’s unquestioning certainty and deep faith, and then a youth’s fierceness and zeal, became emptiness which was then filled with questions. And now every time her companions try to boost her confidence, it only fills her with more doubt.

Kreia is the only one who doesn’t do this. At all. She teaches, planting as many new questions in her apprentice’s mind as she answers; teaches through manipulation as well as explanations. Fights at her side but never speaks of loyalty, and Meetra is grateful for that. Others speak of loyalty; Kreia speaks of the Force. Speaks in simple words and in riddles, sometimes patient, often impatient and irritated by Meetra’s lack of understanding, but not because she considers her a foolish, inept student, no – from the tone of her voice and the scowl on her face it is evident that she doesn’t think of her as an apprentice at all. That Meetra is above and beyond that – has been, for some time, that she’s outgrown her old teachers and found a better path and walked it – and then forgotten everything. This – this… waste – this is what annoys Kreia for some reason.

Among all others who look up to her as to a teacher and to a leader or a master, Kreia is the only one who considers her an equal, and Meetra is grateful for that, too. For the knowledge that whenever Kreia turns to her and expects to hear of a plan, expects that she’s already found a way out of a difficult situation, it is because this is just another exercise meant to open her eyes, not a plea to be guided.

Sometimes, Meetra wonders whether Kreia is really free of the influence of the Force. But then she remembers that despite all the mentoring and all the teachings – though discussions might be a better word to describe it – Kreia has her own agenda, her own goal, hidden from the world in the safety of her mind as her unseeing eyes are veiled underneath the hood of her robe. That her words seem reasonable and wise – are reasonable and wise – but they are just tools she uses to manipulate, all the more effective because she never outright lies. Just throws light on some facts and shadows the others; a carefully constructed chiaroscuro that changes reality whenever it shifts, and it is never at rest. In a way, Kreia’s most important lesson is to doubt everything except _oneself_ – the very lesson Meetra now needs the most.

* * *

 

III

The Exile could always shroud herself – first in the Force, then in the emptiness, and then in the Force again, but differently – every stitch of that new mantle is her careful choice. But now – now she is wrapped in all the pain and poison of Malachor.

“You betrayed me!” There is hurt in the Exile’s voice, as if she wasn’t expecting that, even after everything she learned.

She has been – is – important, true, but there is her and there is the universe and there is the Force – perhaps they are one and the same – but years ago, Kreia set out to change the universe, and that is precisely what she will do. Even if the Exile will have to pay the price. They both will. Everybody does, eventually, only sometimes the price is someone else’s. She would know that, had she listened more carefully.

“You betrayed yourself,” Kreia replies calmly, and her voice fills the chamber, fills the entire building and then every empty space on and around the planet where the Force had burned everything down and out. “You betrayed everyone. Me, the Jedi, Revan, his and my teachings, you own experiences, you betrayed everyone again and again. Your companions, who followed you so dutifully thinking it was of their own will, and you have worried about it all the time but never found the courage to tell them. But all that might be forgotten, perhaps even forgiven. But you have betrayed _yourself_ , you’ve been doing it over and over ever since Dantooine – following someone down the road, taking it for yours, and then going back – but leaving pieces of yourself everywhere. Giving pieces of yourself to _everyone_. How much do you have left now, I wonder?”

The pain in the Exile’s eyes flares up into fire. Good. Very good.

“Enough to end this.”

There is a flash of a lightsaber, but first and foremost there is a flash in the Force – blinding, the briefest, brightest light that scorches everything in its way, strips everything down into particles. A supernova that will remake the whole galaxy anew. That is all Kreia ever wanted. The echoes of this will ripple across the space in wider and wider circles, will go on travelling until everything is changed. And in the middle of it all the Exile – neither light nor dark, neither emptiness nor the Force, once tossed from one to another, but now perfectly balancing between it all, put there by her own hand, which in turn was guided by Kreia’s careful words.

She is the closest to the blast; she will be the first to go. To change. Death and life are just another form of balance, after all. This is, Kreia thinks as the first threads of her mind start dissolving, not a bad way to go.


End file.
